Originally posted by Soothfast
"Love conquers all" is a nice premise for a sappy Disney movie, but I'm afraid it doesn't have legs in a debate about who's operating from the less fantastical set of axioms in concocting a model of reality.

No, it doesn't, and maybe it wasn't as explicit as it seemed to me... but when I said "ultimately what counts is love," I meant in reality, not debate.

And I take it you've never seen "A Man for All Seasons." If you had, you wouldn't have misread/misunderstood the notion of "love" I'm talking about so badly. So I'll just chalk that up to ignorance and let it go 🙂 You really should fill in this gap in your education, though. It's an excellent movie, entertaining and thought-provoking even if you think everybody in it is some kind of thought-criminal or escapee from an asylum.

EDIT: Here's the scene I was quoting:

YouTube

Find me some Disney sappiness there. 🙂

Originally posted by pyxelated
I guess anything's possible, but I had one of the commonly-held definitions in mind, at least implicitly.

I suppose that's a rather familiar rejoinder?

Without looking it up (could be a mistake I know) I understand 'reasonable' to mean based in reason and logic. May I enquire as to the commonly-held definition you had in mind?

Originally posted by divegeester
Back to the OP:

I think it is easier for an atheist to become theist, than it is for a theist to become atheist. The first requires and acceptance of the possibility of a God (although some would say this is an agnostic position), whilst the second requires a rejection of a firmly held belief, firmly held without a rational, and therefore not suscept ...[text shortened]... a reason for that, although the reason is not rational, nor is it something I have control over.

You might find this interesting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14417362

Originally posted by sonhouse
"God" as an irrational number.

Or perhaps as an imaginary number. Invented to fill an inconvenient gap but opening up an astonishing panoply of perspectives.

There's a JG Ballard short story, The Voices of Time, that has a house designed according to the principle of the square root of minus one. I've spent some time in that house ... The hallucinatory panopticon.

Originally posted by huckleberryhound
Daimon is the Greek derivative for the term demon. In this sense the term "demon" means "replete with knowledge." The ancient Greeks thought there were good and bad demons called 'eudemons' and 'cacodemons.' The term 'daimon' means "divine power," "fate" or "god." Daimons, in Greek mythology, included deified heroes. They were considered intermed ...[text shortened]... orms of divination of the time.


Mine says i should drink beer tonight.

I wouldn't argue with it.

Originally posted by Agerg
Perhaps such gods lack the properties a theist would want; but an answer to the question of how we got here is provided just as well by a blind idiot god who created the universe as it is by an all powerful god. In both it's the creating universes aspect that is crucial, the rest is superfluous.

As for the question: Why are we here? I don't ag ...[text shortened]... hat one can ask Why are we [b]and God here? and we're in the same boat as before.[/b]

Then there are those that walk between ...

In this totalitarian universe -- es gibt kein Warum.

Originally posted by avalanchethecat
Without looking it up (could be a mistake I know) I understand 'reasonable' to mean based in reason and logic. May I enquire as to the commonly-held definition you had in mind?

That's close enough for starters, I guess. We can tighten or loosen or otherwise adjust as necessary.

Originally posted by divegeester
How do you mean?

I mean, how does the God you believe in iaffect this world?

Originally posted by biffo konker
You might find this interesting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14417362

It seems shameful to me that Rev Klaas Hendrikse would remain in the
Christian church to spread his anti-Christ theology.

Originally posted by Palynka
I mean, how does the God you believe in iaffect this world?

That is a wide topic and subject to speculation; it isn't what this thread is about.

Originally posted by divegeester
That is a wide topic and subject to speculation; it isn't what this thread is about.

How is that not what this thread is about? You asked what you should do if you didn't believe anymore, so how is what you thought was God's impact on the world not relevant for that?

Or was this thread some more trolling?

Originally posted by divegeester
I am a theist and I would like to be an atheist; or more accurately, I would like to revert to being an atheist.

The arguments put forth in this forum by atheists, has convinced me that this is the rational place to be.

What should I do next please?

Thanks.

Edit: this is a theoretical question of course.

I will advise you to wait,have patience,as it may be that you are passing through a bad patch when every single thing that you felt was the sign of existence of God was a "Delusion". This Angst often comes over every believer that he/she can't just believe that in a God's world such and such a cruelty,injustice,misery is possible.Many lesser mortals than you have wavered in their faith,simply because they say God did not fulfill their worldly wishes/wish,more often than not connected with money,although prayed for. But if you prefer an empty and loveless life filled with nothing but the cacophony of this or that triumph of logic and science over faith,if you accept the thesis that all living beings in this dead universe/multiverse are simply masses of bio-chemical reactions going on and on and then stopping without any clue/aim/reason,then you should give up believing in God.

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]The first requires and acceptance of the possibility of a God

But the first requires more than just this, does it not? Merely accepting the possibility that God exists is still consistent with atheism. I am an atheist, and I certainly accept there is some possibility that God exists.

whilst the second requires a rejection of a firmly h ...[text shortened]... you go on to understate the requirements for X --> Y and overstate the requirements for Y --> X.

"I am an atheist, and I certainly accept there is some possibility that God exists."

Is there any formulation of God that you would say cannot exist? For example, one whose existence and attributes entail logical contradiction?

I assume you will say that the existence of such a God is logically impossible, and so to assert it is possible is to abandon rationality.

Behind this question is my opinion that the possibility of a particular formulation of God being instantiated in a real being, cannot be entertained rationally before all of the logical implications are examined, which requires specifying the attributes of the God. Not having done that, it seems like your statement is somewhat rash.

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
I will advise you to wait,have patience,as it may be that you are passing through a bad patch when every single thing that you felt was the sign of existence of God was a "Delusion". This Angst often comes over every believer that he/she can't just believe that in a God's world such and such a cruelty,injustice,misery is possible.Many lesser mortals than ...[text shortened]... d on and then stopping without any clue/aim/reason,then you should give up believing in God.

According to your description, it seems like the only alternative to there being God, is the kind of dismal world view you describe, and it seems like the theist who loses faith in God, is doomed to adopt this dismal outlook. Yet there are happy atheists. I'm one, although (or because) I don't fit the stereotype of the militant hostile antitheist. I can detect the presence of others like me on this forum. This is not to say we are wearing rose-tinted glasses.

Originally posted by JS357
According to your description, it seems like the only alternative to there being God, is the kind of dismal world view you describe, and it seems like the theist who loses faith in God, is doomed to adopt this dismal outlook. Yet there are happy atheists. I'm one, although (or because) I don't fit the stereotype of the militant hostile antitheist. I can detect ...[text shortened]... esence of others like me on this forum. This is not to say we are wearing rose-tinted glasses.

Happiness is an epiphenomenon of harmonious endocrine activity.